Late Rally Helps UNC Baseball Beat Boston College, Advance to ACC Semifinals

The Diamond Heels scored five runs in the bottom of the seventh inning to erase a 2-0 deficit against No. 14 seed Boston College and win 7-2 to advance to the ACC Tournament semifinals. Carolina will face No. 2 seed Florida State Saturday at 5 p.m.

“Our pitching was outstanding and our defense was outstanding,” said head coach Scott Forbes after the game. “I want to congratulate Boston College. They brought it to the ACC Tournament, and they gave us all we could handle.”

Prior to the seventh, UNC’s offense had not made any headway against Eagles starter A.J. Colarusso, who had outdueled reigning ACC Pitcher of the Year Jake Knapp. Knapp had been mostly efficient, but two Boston College runs in the top of the third had put him on the hook for his first loss of the season. Both Eagle runs had come with two outs.

The game flipped in the bottom of the seventh, when UNC got to the Boston College and loaded the bases with nobody out on three straight walks. That brought up Jackson Van De Brake, who sliced a two-RBI double down the right field line to knot the game at 2-2 and fire up the UNC-heavy crowd at Durham Bulls Athletic Park. Luke Stevenson followed that up with an RBI single, and two more runs would score on a wild pitch and another single before the long half-inning was over.

“We knew that we were a swing away, an at-bat away,” Stevenson said. “We got the bases loaded… and we knew that we had a good chance.”

Stevenson added insurance in the bottom of the eighth, blasting a long two-run home run to the deepest part of the ballpark.

It was more than enough for Walker McDuffie, who pitched two perfect innings in relief of Knapp. Knapp earned his 12th win of the season, allowing two runs on five hits and striking out four. He didn’t allow a walk for the third straight start.

“He made some really good pitches,” Forbes said of Knapp. “He didn’t have his normal 94-96 [fastball] tonight.”

The Diamond Heels are now 40-12 this season. It’s the second straight year UNC has won at least 40 games. Carolina’s ACC semifinal against Florida State is scheduled for 5 p.m. Saturday afternoon.

Featured image via UNC Baseball on Twitter

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